Patent Clearance

a legal term that signifies the possibility of using various aspects of technology, including machinery, instruments, equipment, materials, and production processes, in a given country without violating rights based on valid prior patents and without violating rights to other objects of industrial property (for example, industrial designs) that have been assigned to some third party. Patent clearance is a necessary condition for issuing a patent for an invention.

In the USSR the task of verifying patent clearance is assigned to the enterprises and organizations that develop the corresponding objects or processes. Ministries and departments maintain checks on the patent clearance of goods for export. The State Committee for Inventions and Discoveries of the Council of Ministers of the USSR systematically checks the patent clearance of new items and production processes stipulated in drafts of plans for development of the national economy.